Re: US-CERT Vulnerability Note VU#162289

[Chad Dougherty <crd at cert dot org>]

Joe Buck wrote:
> Thanks.  I hope that you will correct the advisory promptly to avoid any
> implication that one should switch from GCC to a different compiler based
> on this issue, since we've already established that most of GCC's
> competitors perform similar optimizations under some cicumstances (even if
> the particular example that appears in the CERT report is not affected,
> other, similar examples will be, particularly if they appear in a loop).
>
> Both CERT and GCC have their reputations to consider here, and I think
> that this advisory has damaged the reputations of *both*.

The vulnerability note has been significantly reworked to focus on the 
issue of undefined behavior handling in the compiler and the fact that 
conforming implementations are not required to warn of this condition. 
I've tried to incorporate many of the valid concerns that were raise on 
this list in response to the original vulnerability note.

> The advisory should emphasize the solution of auditing buffer overflow
> checks to make sure that they are correct C, and should help people
> write such checks correctly.

The vulnerability note itself essentially punts this issue to the 
corresponding documents in our Secure Coding standard.

	-Chad